One of my favorite guitar orchestrations by Brian May is the middle section of "All Dead, All Dead." How many guitar overdubs do you think it contains?
I'm just going over it in my head, but I don't think there are more than 4, maybe 5 parts to the harmonies. He may have overdubbed them 2-4 times each, but more likely he used the harmonizer.
It has that 'harmonizer' sound to it. So it probably is only a handful of overdubs.
there are only so many parts to a harmony anyway, so alot would be an octave up or whatever, great piece though.
it really is ART.
as Mick Rock says about Bo RHap i think applies here " yeah sure its great rock and roll or whatever, but that is ART!"
Personally I find it overdone, overblown. There's just TOO much there.
To me it's similar to the guitar orchestrations in the second verse of Teo Torriatte (a song I pretty much loathe anyway); Brian tries too hard to be dramatic and orchestral. And the end result suffers by not having any delicacy or real sweetness to it.
The harmony guitars at the end of the solo on Long Away are laid on pretty thick, but they don't have that overbearing feel that you get in ADAD and TT, and instead show subtlety and poignancy. And in things like The Millionaire Waltz there are just as many (if not more) guitar tracks going on, again producing a sound that doesn't grate like the guitars in ADAD and TT.
But from listening to it (ADAD) in my head now, I'd say there's probably a maximum of about 10 (harmony) parts - which of course means there could well be more actual guitar tracks on there, with certain notes being duplicated/double-tracked.
A few years ago, a guitar mag writed an article about the most harmonized track (with guitars) in rock.
If i´m not mistaken Brian MAy´s "The Dark" from "Back to the Light" won the title.
But i never did read the article, so i need confirmation on this.
Take care
I almost mentioned 'The Dark' in my last post as an example of Bri going overboard with the overdubs and it actually working.
I seem to remember one or two quotes (from Bri) about it being overly intensive on the multitrack front - words to the effect that it had the most guitar tracks out of everything he'd ever recorded.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was or wasn't the most guitar-laden track he'd ever recorded. It doesn't really sound leagues ahead of the other songs that are notorious for being multitrack city. If it does really feature more guitars than anything else he's done, it can't be that far out in front.